 |
| Colin R. Singer |
Mounting evidence and a chorus of expert reports sound a clear alarm: a significant and growing cohort of our most valuable immigrants are departing, often just years after obtaining Canadian status, with the vast majority making a beeline for the United States. This isn’t mere casual emigration; it’s a profound brain drain. Canada is investing heavily in the recruitment and settlement of global talent only to see its most highly skilled assets poached by its southern neighbour. For a growing number of international professionals, particularly in the high-demand technology and health-care sectors, Canada’s immigration process has effectively become a low-risk, fast-track pipeline to the otherwise inaccessible U.S. job market.
PriitPoobus: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
In a globally competitive talent arena, this loss is financially crippling. Canada expends millions to attract these candidates through sophisticated programs like Express Entry and Provincial Nominee programs. We temporarily benefit from their skills, their innovation, and their initial tax contributions. But after a few critical years, often armed with the invaluable asset of Canadian citizenship — which grants dramatically easier access to the U.S. job market — they decamp.
The root cause of this “stepping-stone” phenomenon lies in the stark contrast between Canadian and American immigration policy.
Canada offers a predictable, points-based model geared for seamless economic integration. Candidates are assessed comprehensively and successful applicants secure Permanent Residence (PR) — a stable foundation that leads swiftly to citizenship, often within three to four years. This transparency and certainty are Canada’s magnetic strength, making it the preferred initial destination for global talent seeking security and a clear path to a new passport. Upon obtaining Canadian citizenship, these professionals are no longer bound by the same restrictive U.S. immigration caps and can strategically utilize treaties like the USMCA (Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement).
The U.S. system, conversely, is a notoriously opaque and often punitive quagmire. It’s dominated by temporary work visas, notably the H-1B, which is subject to an annual, highly restrictive lottery. The subsequent journey from an H-1B to a U.S. Green Card is a bureaucratic odyssey, frequently stretching over a decade for candidates from high-demand nations like India and China, due to country-specific caps and immense backlogs. This dichotomy creates the perfect “doormat” dynamic.
The USMCA provides a powerful, often exploited, bridge across the border; a quintessential stepping stone to the TN (Trade National) Visa. This visa permits Canadian and Mexican citizens to work in the United States in specific professional occupations with remarkable ease. Crucially, a Canadian citizen can often secure a TN visa at the border with minimal paperwork, bypassing the H-1B lottery entirely.
Canada’s open and predictable immigration framework has thus, inadvertently, become a critical component of the U.S. talent acquisition strategy. We are serving as an efficient processing centre for high-caliber immigrants, enabling them to bypass formidable U.S. bureaucratic friction by virtue of a Canadian passport. The U.S. secures the talent, and Canada is left with the social investment and an economic void.
How large is this talent pool for the United States? There is no publicly available statistics that precisely answers how many unique entries granting TN status by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are issued to Canadians each year. It is estimated however that between 30,000 and 50,000 high-skilled Canadian professionals are granted first-time non-immigrant TN status by CBP officers at designated ports of entry. In 2024, foreign-born Canadian citizens accounted for 60 per cent of all Canadian applicants for U.S. labour certification, immigration-based applications. Overall, approximately 1 million Canadians live in the United States, including naturalized U.S. citizens, second-generation Canadians and those who maintain Canadian citizenship.
The economic implications of this pipeline are staggering. A single Canadian TN professional earning $150,000 annually with a 3 per cent average salary increase over 35 years contributes approximately $2.3 million in lifetime tax revenue to the U.S. economy. Additionally, this individual’s lifetime consumption expenditure is estimated at $6 million during the same period. Extrapolating this, the net annual economic gain to the United States from just 10,000 new high-skilled Canadian TN professionals relocating each year is conservatively estimated at $80 billion, reflecting their combined fiscal contributions and consumer spending.
If Canada genuinely intends to retain the talent it so effectively recruits, a fundamental policy recalibration is imperative. Simply attracting immigrants is no longer enough; we must prioritize retention by aggressively tackling the core drivers of emigration: higher salaries and lower taxes.
While a generous immigration system is beneficial, Canada must urgently quantify the true, long-term economic cost of this brain drain. We must analyze precisely how quickly our Permanent Residents are naturalizing and subsequently relocating to the United States. This critical data should inform a strategic review to ensure our immigration targets are delivering enduring residents, rather than inadvertently subsidizing the American economy with a readily available, pre-vetted labour pool.
Canada has successfully cultivated a global brand as a welcoming haven for immigrants. However, that very welcome is increasingly being leveraged as a strategic instrument by those whose professional ambitions (and paycheques) lie south of the border. We are more than just a neighbour; we are, undeniably, a nation that must decide if it is content to serve as the world’s most sophisticated, and most expensive, immigration staging ground for its largest economic rival. Without meaningful and immediate action, the Canadian passport risks remaining one of the most effective, albeit unintentional, U.S. visa programs ever conceived.
Welcome to the USA (via Canada).
Colin R. Singer is immigration counsel for www.immigration.ca. He can be reached via colin@immigration.ca.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, LexisNexis Canada, Law360 Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
Interested in writing for us? To learn more about how you can add your voice to Law360 Canada, contact Analysis Editor Richard Skinulis at Richard.Skinulis@lexisnexis.ca or call 437-828-6772.